


don't need your thought control

by voodoochild



Series: Challenge on Infinite Earths [5]
Category: The Hour
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Challenge on Infinite Earths, F/M, Gen, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:19:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern day AU; Lix and Randall are teachers at a London academy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't need your thought control

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Challenge on Infinite Earths, day 5, "school". Title from Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall". Not British, so any inaccuracies are mine.

She doesn’t want him here, under any circumstances, and that’s what she tells the board.

They tell her to give him a chance. He turned Unity Academy around in little under two years, spent the past four in Paris working for Lycee Louis-le-Grand. He’s a fantastic organizer, they tell her, just the perfect person for West London. Doesn’t she want to improve their scores? Turn this academy into something just as good as any other secondary school in the country?

She does. She just wants Randall Brown to be, at a minimum, three countries away from her. He was supposed to stay in the past; a bitch of a wrong decision she made during gap year. That journalist she shagged all over Spain, the man she warns all her boyfriends not to be like. Don’t get too attached, darling, she’ll be off in New York next week, Sydney the week after. Don’t fall in love with her. Randall wasn’t someone she was ever going to have to see again. 

(She wakes up, sometimes, in the middle of the night. Reaches for him. Thinks he’s sitting at her desk, typing something into his laptop. Sees the look on his face when he found the pregnancy test, the suppressed sob in his voice when she turned down his proposal, went back to England.)

The board installs him over her protests.

It’s an ordinary Friday afternoon mixed-media class. She’s leading a discussion on ethics, how flip-cams and video phones have changed the way journalism works, and he walks into the back of her class. He looks older, of course, but she can see that mad thirtysomething in him still, the man who knotted his tie perfectly even in the Spanish summer. She continues her class, because Freddie and Hector have gotten into an excellent debate about the role of Twitter in the Arab Spring, and Kiki will continue updating her Instagram throughout class if Lix doesn’t keep an eye on her.

The bell rings, and everyone begins to file out. Bel is the last out the door, throwing curious looks Randall’s way, as he’s not moved a muscle. It’s suddenly eerily quiet as the door closes, and Lix finally looks him in the eyes. 

"Hello, Lix," he says, that Scottish accent still scraping over her nerves. "It’s good to see you."

"Randall," she says flatly, and busies herself tidying the room. 

He still stands the same. Fiddles with his cuffs and the chairs and anything he can get away with. Clears his throat and peers over his glasses at her. She doesn’t know what to say to him, never really did because it was so much easier to just touch him. 

"They’re bright. The one boy - the one in the knitted waistcoat?"

"Freddie." Her tone warms instinctively; Freddie’s always been a particular favorite of hers. He’s got the passion for journalism that so many students his age lack. "Freddie Lyon."

Randall nods. “He’s quite well-spoken. Very incisive points about inherent media bias and lack of attribution.”

"He’s been published, actually. The Guardian’s website, an article on the foster system in England. Firsthand account, but keep that to yourself."

"Of course. Would you mind if-"

"Yes." Cutting him off is necessary; he always did want to talk, debate, discuss. "I would mind, Randall, because I don’t think we have anything to talk about besides work. My congratulations on the director’s position."

Walking out on him hurts, but she’s done it before. They’re wrong; it does get easier.


End file.
